The Philippines' response to the call of World Health Organization (WHO) in 2009 to lessen the augment of Lifestyle Diseases of stroke, cancer, diabetes, etc, and the country's compliance to United Nations Climate Change Peace Building Campaign in 2007. Wellness Pilipinas! was conceived by "Wellness for Peace" Author, Public Speaker & former Peace Ambassador Zara Jane Juan. It consists of pep talks, workshops, symposiums & fora meant to achieve wellness in mind, body, spirit & economics as tools for peace & nation-building. Wellness Pilipinas aired as a live TV show at GNN via G-SAT Asia from 2009-2010 supported by private and public corporations
FYI: WHO is gathering the latest scientific findings and knowledge on coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) and compiling it in a database. We update the database daily from searches of bibliographic databases, hand searches of the table of contents of relevant journals, and the addition of other relevant scientific articles that come to our attention. The entries in the database may not be exhaustive and new research will be added regularly.
Database of publications on coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
You can search the WHO database of publications on coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Articles are searchable by author, key word (title, author, journal), journal, or by general topic. The database automatically displays the most recent articles. To see all articles in the database, select “Show all.” The database is updated daily, Monday through Friday.
Disclaimer: The provision of a link from the WHO website to other sites does not indicate endorsement of those sites by WHO, and WHO accepts no responsibility for the validity or accuracy of their content.
FYI: This course provides a general introduction to nCoV and emerging respiratory viruses and is intended for public health professionals, incident managers and personnel working for the United Nations, international organizations and NGOs.
Self-paced
Language: English Enroll me for this course
Overview: This course provides a general introduction to emerging respiratory viruses, including novel corona viruses. By the end of this course, you should be able to describe:
The nature of emerging respiratory viruses, how to detect and assess an outbreak, strategies for preventing and controlling outbreaks due to novel respiratory viruses;
What strategies should be used to communicate risk and engage communities to detect, prevent and respond to the emergence of a novel respiratory virus.
There are resources attached to each module to help you dive further into this topic.
Learning objective: Describe the fundamental principles of emerging respiratory viruses and how to effectively respond to an outbreak.
Course duration: Approximately 3 hours.
Certificates: No certificate available at this time.
Attention:
WHO teams are working on additional modules which will be uploaded in the coming days. You will be notified when new modules and videos are uploaded. Currently, the materials are offered as slide decks.
The course will offer a certificate in the future, after all of the modules have been published and a quiz has been added to each module.
The course materials are currently being translated into other languages.
Course contents
Emerging respiratory viruses, including nCoV: Introduction:This brief introduction provides an overview of emerging respiratory viruses, including nCoV.
Module A: Introduction to Emerging respiratory viruses, including nCoV:Overall learning objective: To be able to explain why an emerging respiratory virus, including nCoV are a global threat to human health
Module B: Detecting Emerging respiratory viruses, including nCoV: Surveillance and Laboratory investigation:Overall learning objective: To describe how to detect and assess an emerging respiratory virus outbreak
Module C: Risk Communication and Community Engagement:Overall learning objective: To describe what strategies should be used to communicate risk and engage communities to detect, prevent and respond to nCoV
Module D: Preventing and Responding to an emerging respiratory virus, including nCoV:Overall learning objective: To describe strategies for preventing and controlling emerging respiratory pathogens, including nCoV outbreaks.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are known to cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
A novel coronavirus (CoV) was identified in 2019 in Wuhan, China. This is a new coronavirus that has not been previously identified in humans.
Leading health experts from around the world have been meeting at the World Health Organization’s Geneva headquarters to assess the current level of knowledge about the new COVID-19 disease, identify gaps and work together to accelerate and fund priority research needed to help stop this outbreak and prepare for any future outbreaks.
The 2-day forum was convened in line with the WHO R&D Blueprint – a strategy for developing drugs and vaccines before epidemics, and accelerating research and development while they are occurring.
“This outbreak is a test of solidarity -- political, financial and scientific. We need to come together to fight a common enemy that does not respect borders, ensure that we have the resources necessary to bring this outbreak to an end and bring our best science to the forefront to find shared answers to shared problems. Research is an integral part of the outbreak response,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “I appreciate the positive response of the research community to join us at short notice and come up with concrete plans and commitment to work together.”
The meeting, hosted in collaboration with GloPID-R (the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness) brought together major research funders and over 300 scientists and researchers from a large variety of disciplines. They discussed all aspects of the outbreak and ways to control it including: the natural history of the virus, its transmission and diagnosis; animal and environmental research on the origin of the virus, including management measures at the human-animal interface; epidemiological studies; clinical characterization and management of disease caused by the virus; infection prevention and control, including best ways to protect health care workers; research and development for candidate therapeutics and vaccines; ethical considerations for research; and integration of social sciences into the outbreak response.
“This meeting allowed us to identify the urgent priorities for research. As a group of funders we will continue to mobilize, coordinate and align our funding to enable the research needed to tackle this crisis and stop the outbreak, in partnership with WHO,” said Professor Yazdan Yazdanpanah, chair of GloPID-R. “Equitable access – making sure we share data and reach those most in need, in particular those in lower and middle-income countries, is fundamental to this work which must be guided by ethical considerations at all times.”
During the meeting, the more than 300 scientists and researchers participating both in person and virtually agreed on a set of global research priorities. They also outlined mechanisms for continuing scientific interactions and collaborations beyond the meeting which will be coordinated and facilitated by WHO. They worked with research funders to determine how necessary resources can be mobilized so that critical research can start immediately.
The deliberations will form the basis of a research and innovation roadmap charting all the research needed and this will be used by researchers and funders to accelerate the research response.
GloPID-R is a global alliance of international research funding organizations investing in preparedness and response to epidemics.
WHO’s standard recommendations for the general public to reduce exposure to and transmission of a range of illnesses are as follows, which include hand and respiratory hygiene, and safe food practices:
Frequently clean hands by using alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water;
When coughing and sneezing cover mouth and nose with flexed elbow or tissue – throw tissue away immediately and wash hands;
Avoid close contact with anyone who has fever and cough;
If you have fever, cough and difficulty breathing seek medical care early and share previous travel history with your health care provider;
When visiting live markets in areas currently experiencing cases of novel coronavirus, avoid direct unprotected contact with live animals and surfaces in contact with animals;
The consumption of raw or undercooked animal products should be avoided. Raw meat, milk or animal organs should be handled with care, to avoid cross-contamination with uncooked foods, as per good food safety practices.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health calls for the provision of nurturing care to all children. This means a stable, protective and emotionally supportive environment set up by parents and other caregivers that promotes the child’s good health and learning. Given the additional challenges that they experience, parents of children with developmental delays or disorders should be specifically supported in providing nurturing care within a ‘whole family’ approach.
The WHO Caregiver Skills Training programme
Based on the available evidence and experts’ and target users’ guidance, WHO, along with international partners, developed a novel, open-access programme for families of children with developmental delays or disorders, including autism, which could be implemented in low-resource settings by non-specialists. The programme uses a family-centred approach and is designed to be delivered by non specialists (nurses, community-based workers or peer caregivers) as part of a network of health and social services for children and families.
The WHO CST consists of nine group sessions and three individual home visits, focused on training the caregiver on how to use everyday play and home activities and routines as opportunities for learning and development. The sessions specifically address communication, engagement, daily living skills, challenging behaviour and caregiver coping strategies. Additional, booster modules on caregiver well-being and for minimally verbal children are available
Field testing and the way forward
The WHO CST programme is currently undergoing field testing in more than 30 countries in regions throughout the world, including high-, low- and middle-income countries. Two randomised controlled trials are underway in Pakistan and Italy, and future trials are planned in China, Ethiopia and Kenya. More than 300 professionals have been trained and more than 2550 families have received the intervention.
With previous research highlighting the effectiveness of caregiver-mediated interventions and preliminary evidence of good acceptability and feasibility of the WHO CST programme in communities worldwide, the programme is working towards the goal of closing the gap in access to care for children with developmental disorders and delays, ultimately aiming to help them reach their optimal developmental potential.
Miguel Mendes
The WHO Caregiver Skills Training programme for families of children with developmental delays and disorders is available upon request.
People can reduce their risk of dementia by getting regular exercise, not smoking, avoiding harmful use of alcohol, controlling their weight, eating a healthy diet, and maintaining healthy blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels, according to new guidelines issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) today.
“In the next 30 years, the number of people with dementia is expected to triple,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We need to do everything we can to reduce our risk of dementia. The scientific evidence gathered for these Guidelines confirm what we have suspected for some time, that what is good for our heart, is also good for our brain.”
The Guidelines provide the knowledge base for health-care providers to advise patients on what they can do to help prevent cognitive decline and dementia. They will also be useful for governments, policy-makers and planning authorities to guide them in developing policy and designing programmes that encourage healthy lifestyles.
The reduction of risk factors for dementia is one of several areas of action included in WHO’s Global action plan for the public health response to dementia. Other areas include: strengthening information systems for dementia; diagnosis, treatment and care; supporting carers of people with dementia; and research and innovation.
WHO’s Global Dementia Observatory, launched in December 2017, is a compilation of information about country activities and resources for dementia, such as national plans, dementia-friendly initiatives, awareness campaigns and facilities for care. Data from 21 countries, including Bangladesh, Chile, France, Japan, Jordan and Togo, have already been included, with a total of 80 countries now engaged in providing data.
Creating national policies and plans for dementia are among WHO’s key recommendations for countries in their efforts to manage this growing health challenge. During 2018, WHO provided support to countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Qatar, Slovenia and Sri Lanka to help them develop a comprehensive, multi-sectoral public health response to dementia.
An essential element of every national dementia plan is support for carers of people with dementia, said Dr Dévora Kestel, Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at WHO. “Dementia carers are very often family members who need to make considerable adjustments to their family and professional lives to care for their loved ones. This is why WHO created iSupport. iSupport is an online training programme providing carers of people with dementia with advice on overall management of care, dealing with behaviour changes and how to look after their own health.”
iSupport is currently being used in eight countries, with more expected to follow.
Dementia: a rapidly growing public health problem
Dementia is an illness characterized by a deterioration in cognitive function beyond what might be expected from normal ageing. It affects memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning capacity, language and judgement. Dementia results from a variety of diseases and injuries that affect the brain, such as Alzheimer disease or stroke.
Dementia is a rapidly growing public health problem affecting around 50 million people globally. There are nearly 10 million new cases every year. Dementia is a major cause of disability and dependency among older people. Additionally, the disease inflicts a heavy economic burden on societies as a whole, with the costs of caring for people with dementia estimated to rise to US$ 2 trillion annually by 2030.
Presidential Communications Operations Office – Committee on Media Affairs and Strategic Communications (PCOO – CMASC) in partnership w/ Asia Society Philippines & Asian Institute of Management (AIM) hosted the ASEAN 2017 Dialogues held 11 July 2017 at AIM, Makati, Philippines. Attending the dialogue is Amb.Zara Jane Juan, Convener , Climate Change Peace Building for United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNDSG) of sailing for peace United Nation's International Day of Peace Vigil MALUSOG ANG PINOY! United Nations Friends Photo Credit: Aloy Menez
